


Together Separate Together

by rayvanfox



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 21:37:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayvanfox/pseuds/rayvanfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was finally nighttime.<br/>Which was both good and bad. <br/>It meant the loneliness was sharper without daytime distractions, but also, blessed sleep would come.<br/>He’d taken to sleeping more since the…since Tel Aviv. <br/>Since the one thing he was sure of, the one thing he’d been able to hold onto, was ripped from him, dashing him to the ground.<br/>But in sleep, his brain refused to acknowledge the tragic event that tore him apart in waking life. When dreaming, his other half was always there, and he was able to be happy. Or at least something close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together Separate Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [homosociallyyours](https://archiveofourown.org/users/homosociallyyours/gifts).



> this started out as a birthday drabble for my bean (homosociallyyours). it was written from her prompt in the 12 hours between 2pm and 2am yesterday, bean’s birthday. i edited it this morning for posting. (so yeah, be kind.)

_It was finally nighttime._  
Which was both good and bad.   
It meant the loneliness was sharper without daytime distractions, but also, blessed sleep would come.  
He’d taken to sleeping more since the…since Tel Aviv.   
Since the one thing he was sure of, the one thing he’d been able to hold onto, was ripped from him, dashing him to the ground.  
But in sleep, his brain refused to acknowledge the tragic event that tore him apart in waking life. When dreaming, his other half was always there, and he was able to be happy. Or at least something close. Not always safe, or of sound mind or body, but what else was new? Because nothing was impossible, even resurrection, if they were together. That was the perk of finding someone that complemented you so completely. Until you both took it for granted….  
Sleep. Sleep will help keep the despair at bay. 

—

The dream was set in London, which was rare enough that it merits comment. He was hiding both a firearm and a wound under his suit coat, which was not rare in the least. He wasn’t headed to Medical, of course, he was headed for home. Their home. It was daytime, and sunny, and the odds of finding his lover in the flat were slim, but he couldn’t help the flutter of anticipation. The fact that Q could still do that to him had Bond grinning through his wince. That, and the unspecified but certain knowledge of a mission well accomplished, which meant Q would also be in a good mood. The pleasure of coming home to his boy like this spiked hard through him.

The dream shifted from the pavement outside their building to the hallway outside their door, and Q opening it to let Bond in, his face glowing with warm surprise. He was clad in pyjama bottoms and his hair was tousled, as if he had recently woken up, but he was coherent enough that he must’ve had at least one cup of coffee already.

He’d barely let Bond through the threshold before his hands were all over, fingers touching Bond’s face and neck and shoulders, taking off his suit jacket, pressing hands to his chest and back, pressing his face to Bond’s neck.

He’d missed it so much. His touch. Q was spectacularly good in bed, but that wasn’t the thing about him that Bond craved. It was simple, sweet, caring touches like this. Even when they caught his injuries. Because their purpose wasn’t to find where it hurt—Bond was deeply sure of that—and yet, they always did.

He hissed in a breath at the light raking of Q’s fingers over the gash in his side and Q froze, even with his lips two inches from Bond’s and his other hand cupping Bond’s arse. He didn’t have time to exhale before Q had resumed his journey to Bond’s mouth, shifting only so his offending hand could press firmly against the wound, palm hot but healing in its heat.

Literally, it felt as if the longer Q pressed against the jagged cut, the less open and fresh the wound seemed to be. The pain went from burning, to sharp, to dull, to an ache, to non-existent, all the nerve endings seeming to repair themselves along with, Bond supposed, the flesh and skin. Either that, or Q’s deep kisses and light touches were insistent and enjoyable enough to take all of Bond’s focus, and the awareness of his injury was the first to go.

The outcome was the same — Bond was unfettered by pain and therefore could give his full attention to the person he most wanted to see in the world. The reason he came home from every mission as intact as possible, or at all, really. The purpose he now had which made him think about a future; someone to survive until retirement age for. The person for which the word ‘unnecessary’ finally had meaning when it was attached to the front of the word ‘risk’.

The one who had inhabited not only the space, but the definition of, home.

His Quartermaster. His Q.

—

It wasn’t a dream about losing him. That was novel. It was, thank all the gods, one about him coming home. But even within the dream, one corner of Q’s consciousness felt the dark-edged threat of the fact that he would be waking to an empty bed, which made the rest of him more desperate to enjoy the illusion of his lover while he had his hands on it.

In dreams like this, when Bond came home battered but happy, Q would usually take time to dress his wounds before taking him to bed, first reveling in the mundanity of the gentle but sure touch of stitching or bandaging or icing or massaging the body of his injury-prone lover. But it had been too long since he’d had his double oh’s body pressed to his own, he would not postpone the pleasure any longer. Who knew when he might wake from this oasis of his presence into the desert of solitude that his life had become.

He’d known it was likely to happen. He’d signed on to the relationship with that understanding. There was not one double oh agent in the history of MI6 that had ever lived to retirement age. And he didn’t find Bond until he was close enough to be defying the statistics already. But to lose his partner on a mission that he himself was heading, had personally asked M for the resources to put together, just when their working relationship was the closest it had ever been, and when he was the one calling the shots on comm, was utterly devastating.

They had gotten cocky. And careless. Not with the enemy, but with their own. They had assumed that the seamless coordination between the two of them was matched by the others in the field, that the surety of their voices and choices would be enough to guide the rest of the team unerringly to success. They had forgotten what hesitancy was like in the absolute trust they had built with each other. Which was so intoxicating, for both of them, that they let it go to their heads. The ones they used for work. Which were not to be ruled by their hearts. Ever.

Ever.

Q struggled to keep from beating himself up over this mistake every single day. Because being alone, after having such deep understanding of another that even missions with him had felt like a well rehearsed dance performance, their choreography so tight it left everyone witnessing them breathless, was more agonising than hacking on a dial-up connection.

And that’s not even mentioning how well they fit with each other off-mission. He missed every bit of living together. The good and the bad. He missed the extra laundry and dishes when Bond was home. Even the boredom and the fights and dealing with sulky, grumpy, or exceedingly drunk Bond when work didn’t go well. He missed every last detail because it meant they were sharing their lives together. Their life. Singular. That which he had admitted to Bond he was committed to keeping as one. Bond had agreed, had made sure Q knew he felt the same, right before he’d left for Tel Aviv.

And so the dream of him coming home held urgency, as Q’s need for escape from the crushing weight of a solitary life was bordering on desperate. He threw himself fully into the fleeting sensation of his lover’s body, his mouth, his hands, his cock.

—

Bond’s dream impatiently shifted from hallway snogging to being naked on their bed with a fluidity he could only wish for in real life. It was delicious to feel Q on his skin, in his mouth, his hands, his arse. He deliberately entangled their limbs, dug his fingers into Q’s hair, pinned them both to the bed in twisted sheets, just to feel as if they might never have to let go. He pressed his lithe lover hard into the mattress, keeping him covered, unable to escape, though by the movements and sounds coming from underneath him, Bond was sure there was no desire to be anywhere but as close to each other as possible. They explored every inch, every angle, every permutation of parts that they could. They didn’t stop until they’d wrung every last drop of pleasure (and a good bit of pain) out of each other, exhausting themselves in the search for oneness that comes of two bodies meeting, covered in sweat and saliva and semen.

The catharsis of the sex was not lost on either of them, though Bond’s might have been a more complete purging, as he felt there was nothing left but this. Nowhere to go from here. Nothing more important than what felt like a purifying ritual, giving him permission to move past the guilt and shame of the purgatory he’d languished in until now.

—

Q wanted everything. All of it. At once. The imperative in his body was staggering, and yet it was matched by how much his mind and heart clamored for the same closeness and release. Both would be able to chase away the despair that had started pricking at the edges of him. He wanted to feel every last possible sensation he could pull from their bodies in close proximity. He wanted to ignite the white hot flames of passion they could spark in each other, as well as feed the deep red smouldering pleasure that built slowly towards its peak. He spoke, whispered, questioned, shouted and whimpered Bond’s name—his first name—over and over, branding it into Bond’s hearing like a blacksmith’s iron on calfskin. And Bond returned the intimacy by breathing Q’s true name—the one he’d given to a total of three people since he started hacking under his initialized pseudonym—into his ear, hot, and full of desire for him.

For him. Bond wanted him.

The distance, the time away, the seductions on the job, the risks taken, the lives ended or broken, none of these mattered to Q because when they were together they knew there was no one else, nothing else, that made them feel like this. Never had been. Not for Q. And from the allusions Bond had made about the woman he wouldn’t name, this was nothing like what Bond had felt for her. This was between them. And no one else could even catch a glimpse of its breadth and depth, let alone get a hold of it or get it in their sights. They were safe in each other. It was the most extraordinary thing to have found, in the most unlikely corner. But there it was.

The pure need Q had for this thing, this life, this (dare he say it) this love, that had grown up between himself and this man was so engulfing he thought he would drown in it before he woke. But then the physical desire flared up so sharply, simply by brushing their bellies together, that Q cried out as he came, which had him coming to consciousness in the next moment, the cry turning into a sob as, bereft, he reached into the void of the other half of their bed. His bed.

But then his fingers brushed skin.

Without conscious thought, they sought out the flesh, grabbing hold of a biceps, wanting so badly for it to be real. And to belong to the dead man he’d dreamt still existed.

When his mind caught up, he flinched away in terror as to who could possibly have infiltrated the inner sanctum of his massively secure flat. His motherfucking bed. Fingers reached out to grab his throat—no, to brush his chin, stroke his cheek—and even as the adrenaline spiked through him he couldn’t keep himself from leaning into the contact, praying against all hope for the dream to have come true.

“Q, darling…Andrew, my love.” And there it was, his name. In the mouth of the person in his bed. Which meant there was only one possibility of who it could be. Of the three that knew it, one had called him Andy and was long dead, one was in America and had only ever called him Drew from the time they were six, and the last was…

“James!” He lunged forward to wrap himself around his once more resurrected love, the adrenaline sting being overpowered by endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and the remnants of oxytocin from the dream. “Am I awake? Are you real? Alive?”

“Yes. All of these things.” He pressed himself as close as he could, burying his face in Q’s neck nuzzling the curls at his nape.

“You, we, how…?? God, James. It feels like I dreamt you back to life. Come here and let’s continue it, before I wake up fully and freak out.”

“You were dreaming of me too?” Q leaned back enough to look Bond in the face, quizzically. “After I broke in and watched you sleep for a bit, I fell into a dream where you healed my side and took me to bed and…”

“Fucked you six ways to Sunday?”

“Well, yes…”

“Me too. Let’s make it a reality.” He started taking off Bond’s clothes. “Any wounds I should know about?” Q’s hands were shaking but moving quickly down Bond’s shirt, impatient with buttons and belts and flies.

Bond began to assist in the removal. “Not that haven’t healed in the months since Tel Aviv.”

“Good. I don’t want to hurt you any more than necessary. At least, not yet.”

Both of their grins had gone feral. “Oh, my darling Q. You’re still aroused from that dream aren’t you?”

“Maybe…now come show me how accurate my subconscious memory is, you afterlife reject.”

“My pleasure, Quartermaster, sir.”

Q’s growl at Bond’s sign of submission was lost in a mouthful of Bond’s skin, and the rest of their words were lost till morning, when a thoroughly debauched and contentedly achey Bond surprised tears and demands for an explanation from an exhausted and post-orgasm-hazy Q by sliding a ring on his finger. Q retaliated by not letting him off the bed until promises of shorter resurrection turnarounds had been made and a date had been set.


End file.
